1. Field
This disclosure relates generally to nonvolatile memory cells, and more specifically, to nonvolatile memory cells having oxide growth.
2. Related Art
Semiconductor non-volatile memories (NVMs), and particularly flash electrically erasable, programmable read-only memories (EEPROMs), are widely used in a range of electronic equipment from computers, to telecommunications hardware, to consumer appliances. The flash EEPROM is encountered in numerous configurations. In particular, a floating-gate NVM cell is characterized by a stacked gate construction in which a floating gate, typically formed from polysilicon, is separated from the substrate by a first (lower) oxide layer and is separated from a polysilicon control gate by a second (upper) oxide layer. No direct electrical connection is made to the floating gate (hence, “floating”).
In another configuration, a charge storage layer comprising nanocrystals as the charge storage mechanism is used in place of the floating gate. The nanocrystals function as isolated charge storage elements.
As devices continue to become smaller with advances in semiconductor device technology, the performance of the individual memory cells has become more important. The read function and threshold voltage variation in particular suffer with reduced device performance.